New study sheds light on long-term friendships

A new study shed some light on the way long-term friendships work. It's been proven that while people may not maintain long-term friendships with the same people, they will always have the same number of friends.

Researchers mentioned that "our capacity for maintaining emotionally close friendships is finite."

"New friendships come at the expense of 'relegating' existing friends," an Oxford expert said. A group of 24 students were the subjects in the study, which was done in Britain over a span of 18 months.

The subjects assigned their companions and acquaintances a score, indicating their closeness and filled out the survey thrice during the entire study. Researchers also kept a track of who the participants spoke to and how long the conversations were carried on for.

They discovered that the identities of those friends changed but the amount of time spent on phone calls remained the same.